Boltzmann's Billiard Systems: Computation of the Billiard Mapping and Some Numerical Results

L. Boltzmann proposed a billiard model with a planar central force problem reflected against a line not passing through the center. He asserted that such a system is ergodic, which thus illustrates his ergodic hypothesis. However, it has been recently shown that when the underlying central force problem is the Kepler problem then the system is actually integrable by Gallavotti-Jauslin. This raises the question of whether Boltzmann's assertion holds true for some central force problems that he considered. In this paper, we present some geometrical and numerical analysis on the dynamics of several of these systems. As indicated by the numerics, many of these systems show chaotic dynamics and a system seems to be ergodic.